Besides pretty much ignoring the bible for the most part, what excuse did the church give for scripture people drinking wine? Was it a Joseph smith translation that it wasn't wine, but grape juice or something?
I'm so excited that I forgot this. I was explaining how my TBM aunt freaks out over alcohol and the guy was like what does she do when the scripture comes up about him turning water into wine? Intuitively, I know there's a reason that discussion would dead end, but I've forgotten the Mormon justification.

The "lie" I was told in Sunday school in the fifties was that it wasn't really wine but wine was the word used in Biblical times to describe unfermented grape juice. I knew it was a crock even at the age of ten, but was also smart enough to not speak up.

Years later I had a friend who was raised Southern Baptist. We both howled when she told me the Baptists said the exact same thing.

This silliness was still be expounded upon thru the 80s.

It never made sense, except that wine would cost more $$$.

I am surprised that they just don't print a giant photo of both bread and wine. They could bless the photos and then pass it around while members use their imagination to partake of it.

It would save the morg a lot of dough over time!

Surprisingly, there isn't a lot about the wine at Cana. The church didn't make a huge deal about the WOW until the Heber J. Grant era, so it wasn't much of an issue. With today's Pharisee church, it's not covered in the correlated manuals, so it's simply skipped over and not considered, or they go to auto-pilot and say "grape juice" as though it was fully settled.

When Grant tightened up the rules, then there needed to be some justification, so along came John A. Widtsoe to the rescue. I have no idea if his assertions hold up here, since he's using some really obscure sources in his footnote. Maybe he had to search long and hard to find some support.

John A. & Leah D. Widtsoe, "The Word of Wisdom: A Modern Interpretation" (1938), p. 61:

"Reference is often made to the supposed use of wine by the Savior at the last supper. It is well known, however, that the words 'the fruit of the vine' have been translated as 'wine.' It is equally well known that in the Old Testament, three different words are translated 'wine,' two of which, used most commonly, refer clearly to unfermented grape juice. In the New Testament two Greek words, not necessarily representing fermented grape juice, are translated 'wine.' Intoxicating wine was not a common beverage among ancient Israel.[12]"

[fn12] Gall, "An Interpreting Concordance of the New Testament," 1863; Ritchie, Win., "Scripture Wines," 1870; Emerson, R. E., "A Lay Thesis on Bible Wines," 1902.


In addition, we can count on the ever-reliable B. McConkie to give his opinion about the Cana wine, and to expect everyone to accept it just because he says so.

Bruce R. McConkie, "Doctrinal New Testament Commentary," Vol. 1, p. 136:

"John 2:3. Wine] 'Fruit of the vine' (Matt. 26:29), a light, sweet wine (normally unfermented); eaten with bread it was one of the staple foods of the day."


And finally, another McConkie opinion about a different New Testament wine reference. He is, after all, the last word on any subject.

Bruce R. McConkie, "Doctrinal New Testament Commentary," Vol. 3, pp. 93-94:

"1 Tim. 5:23. Wine] 'The fermented, or, loosely, the unfermented, juice of any fruit or plant used as a beverage; as, currant wine.' (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.) Having knowledge of Timothy's physical infirmities, Paul is probably here counseling him that fruit juices will be more healthful than water. It is not reasonable to suppose that Timothy was being told to drink an alcoholic beverage, unless such was under limited medicinal circumstances."

And the three OT words used to mean "fruit of the vine" are all variations of the word "Welch's."

Why does the Book of Mormon call for "wine" (as divinely translated) to be used in the sacrament ritual? Why didn't God make Joseph Smith translat it as "unfermented grape juice"?

Wine (fermented) was indeed widely used in the ancient near East - grape juice does not keep for long in that climate without fermenting.

What do you think the guests said at the wedding in Cana, when Jesus produced the drinks? "Wow, Jesus, this is sure great juice!"

IN b 4 ~ some grape juice is better than other grape juise ~



( srs ) ~



can confirm ~

My Mormon father told me this dumbass theory of two wines: wine, and "wine of the vine." One was non alcoholic and the other wasn't. I can't remember which was which, but I do remember thinking it was bullshit. The alleged thing was that Jesus only drank grape juice. I got nothing but disinformation from that man and his cult.

Jesus has a purple stain over his upper lip from grape juice.

Mormons have a purple stain over their lip from kool aid.

Think of the logic: A wedding is traditionally in Spring. Grapes are harvested in Late Summer.

Therefore no refrigeration (it would have slow fermented anyway and made sparkling wine), no grape juice, no WoW, no worries about the "appearance of evil".

Also, there is the thought that the host of the party was surprised that the "good wine" was saved 'til later, because the good wine would be served first, and people at the wedding would get a little sloshed so that they wouldn't notice the crappier stuff later on.

The mormon kids I knew in high school in Sandy frequently would say, "Sure, it's wine, but do you know how AWFUL the water was back then? They had to drink it." True story.

I grew up Episcopalian... so we had real wine in communion. A lot of Roman Catholics only got the bread at communion, we got the host in both forms. I had to go to church every week, I was in church choir. It sucked taking communion with a bad hangover in high school BTW

I live in the Bible bet so all the Baptists, Assembly of God types as well as the few Mormons get all judgmental about wine. We had friends who sent their kid to a Christian School, they got a "talkin to" from the school for having beer in their buggy at the grocery store. So they changed kids to Catholic school where the PTA fund-raiser is a keg at the school/church fair.

I have read Welsh's Grape Juice came about during the Temperence movement as an alternative to wine. Some kind of innovation in preservation. As others have pointed out, grape juice would begin to ferment very quickly, especially in the summer in warmer climates like the Mideast and Mediterranean and really most of the US. So wine it was.

" I heard Jesus he drank wine"
MIRANDA LAMBERT

There is a bit of truth to that. In the past, clean drinking water wasn't reliably available, especially as populations grew denser. Mankind, over time, developed two ways of dealing with the problem. One way was by drinking beverages with alcohol in them - wine, beer, ale, mead, etc. The alcohol inhibited the growth of disease-causing organisms.

In the east people drank a lot of tea - leaves steeped in boiling water. The boiling water also killed most microorganisms. Of course people back then had no concept of the germ theory of disease. But over time people noticed they were less likely to get sick if they drank wine or tea instead of water.

But to get back to your high school classmates, if the water into wine miracle was about Jesus providing a beverage that was safe to drink because the water was so bad, wouldn't the miracle have been more impressive if Jesus turned the bad water into clean, pure drinking water?

And maybe I'm going too far with my argument here, but isn't it oddly coincidental that the Mormon emphasis on the avoidance of alcohol occurred at about the same time that science was figuring out the germ theory of disease and the importance of clean drinking water?

You couldn't have grape juice in the ancient world unless it was straight out of the press. No refrigeration and no motorized transport meant by the time you got it anywhere, it was wine.

Turning the water into wine before drinking it makes perfect sense, from an undiluted POV.

Why water, if one can tipple instead?!

At a wedding feast, it's the only way to go!

From wiki, the following: "Alcoholic beverages appear in the Hebrew Bible, after Noah planted a vineyard and became inebriated. In the New Testament, Jesus miraculously made copious amounts of wine at the marriage at Cana. Wine is the most common alcoholic beverage mentioned in biblical literature, ..."

ETA: Jesus' wine would be kosher. ... Jez saying ....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/02/2016 11:04AM by Amyjo.

How good was Jesus' wine? And if it was fizzy, did it go down a bomb?

Is unfermented grape juice possible in the middle east desert heat for more than a day? Chemists please advise!

We were told it was "mild" wine because water back the was not safe to drink and the alcohol was necessary for health reasons.

1 Timothy 5:23 "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."

Since doing some (and only some) ancient history, I too had come up with Bezoar's explanation - wine was better for you in biblical times, than water, as water was very polluted and could make you sick. The ancient peoples had not worked out things like the best forms of sanitation that could be used in cities (although some areas were quite good). Before the advent of cites and towns, the hunter gatherer people moved on when the area they were living in began to foul up. This was not possible once people began to settle, and they literally lived in their own, and their animals filth, without understanding of germs and disease. Water sources became sources of illness.

I understand that even if they drank the water,they would add a little wine to so it would make them less prone to illness. It was noticed that this tended to cut down on illness. Other places (in parts of Europe for example) drank beer for the same reason.

To me it was a no brainer that Jesus would have blessed the water to wine so that people would not get sick. Also wine would be more festive to drink at a wedding. Other than tscc no one would have had a problem with that.

It seems to me that it is in the same category as eating pork. In ancient cites where the weather was hot and there was no refridgeration, pork would have gone off very quickly and it is renowned for making people sick. Hence the Jewish and other leaders forbidding of pork.

In TMC one day, after receiving the bread, the deacon passed me by, with the water. Re-entering the chapel, I said, "you skipped me", as he passed me the water, certainly surprising and stultifying the bishoPRICK.

That was the last time I enter a MC as a cult-carrying member.


I've had wine every since.

“And it came to pass that he planted vineyards round about in the land; and he built wine-presses, and made wine in abundance”
Mosiah 11:15

Among other mentions.


Oops.

I make wine.

It only takes 30 days in warm weather to ferment some alcohol.

Yeast dies when the alcohol content reaches about 12% unless you have special yeast, that can live up to about 17%

Naturally occurring yeast, on the fruit, causes fermentation. In two months it would reach maximum alcohol content, and stay there. Drinkable, even if warm, unless it got too much air and turned to vinegar.

In the Mid East they harvest grapes in the fall, and the very last grapes might be usable in December.

The Last Supper (Passover) is after Vernal Equinox, in the Spring. Actually Passover is after the Equinox, then a full moon then the next Sabbath starts Passover.

So how do you get fresh juice in April, with no refrigeration, and the last harvest was in December?

WoW was considered advice rather than commandment at the beginning. JS, for example, set up a tap room (bar) in the Nauvoo House until Emma told him that she didn't want the children raised in that environment and that "either that bar goes out of the house or we will." While they would frequently preach on the WoW, it was often more warnings against excess, rather than prohibition. In preparing to exodus from Kirtland, for example, they covenanted to keep the WoW, but Hyrum cautioned, "not to be too particular in regards to the Word of Wisdom" (HoC 3:90-95). Arrington writes that BY sent families to settle Dixie to produce, among other things, wine for the sacrament. By the 1870's church vineyards produced 3,000 gallons per year (Great Basin Kingdom, 216-222) and the church operated a saloon at saltair. As temperance movements reignited across the US--culminating in prohibition in 1919--the church began to interpret the WoW more stringently. The 12 stopped using wine in their weekly sacrament meetings on July 5, 1906. In 1915 JFS sent a letter instructing leaders to not ordain brethren unless they could "abstain from the use of tobacco and intoxicating drinks." In 1921 HJG made the WoW a temple requirement. As time passed people came to assume that it had always had been a commandment and were puzzled by things like Jesus drinking wine at the marriage feast (hence your " unfermented wine") or JS sending for wine and tobacco pipes while in Carthage jail (HoC 6:616. Later editions of HoC changed to read that they sent for "medicine" and "remedies").